Chicago Teachers Union fears hundreds of jobs lost with school closings

June 05, 2013|By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune reporter

Demonstrators from Walk the Walk interrupt a City Council meeting to shout slogans concerning upcoming school closings. The group was ushered out of the chambers. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

As Chicago Public Schools prepares to issue budgets for individual schools to principals, the Chicago Teachers Union is predicting that hundreds of its members could be laid off because of the district's ongoing budget woes.

CPS last week failed to persuade state legislators to extend a pension holiday that has allowed the district to contribute less than required payments since 2010. The district now faces an additional $412 million in pension payments in the coming year and that, along with the plan to close 49 elementary schools and a new per-pupil-based budgeting system, has led to fears of major layoffs.

CPS officials say they are analyzing the impact of paying a total of $612 million in pension payments in the budget year that begins July 1. The district said it is looking at additional reductions in central office, administrative and operations spending to deal with that, in addition to possibly moving its central office from 125 S. Clark St. in the Loop to less expensive quarters.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said cuts will be kept "as far away from the classroom as possible" and that class sizes will not be increased.

She acknowledged the additional budget expense equals roughly 4,000 teaching positions but said suggesting teachers will be hit anywhere near that hard "assumes that we won't be able to find other ways to address the increase in our pension payment."

"That is not a reflection of how the district will have to close its budget gap," Carroll said.

The district has not released its 2013-14 budget and in most years doesn't do so until several weeks after the beginning of the fiscal year. It must be approved by the end of August. Since last fall, CPS has been talking about a looming $1 billion budget deficit as it attempted to sell its school closings plan.

CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said the union is predicting that anywhere from 136 to more than 350 teachers could lose their jobs as a result of the school closings alone. CTU officials worry that there may be even more cuts ahead once principals start tackling their individual budgets.

"This is the kind of uncertainty that makes the whole project of providing urban education so much harder," Sharkey said. "The suburbs have done their hiring already. We're still a month away from knowing how many teachers laid off from closing schools will transfer with their students. We don't even know if there's going to be a drastic increase in class size and mass layoffs."

The 49 schools and one high school program being closed employ about 2,000 workers, a number that includes teachers, principals, engineers, clerks and lunch staff.

While many could lose their jobs, under the teachers contract reached after last fall's strike, qualified teachers can follow their students to new schools if there are jobs available.

CPS officials said that until principals finalize their budgets and staffing plans, district officials will not know how many teachers will be let go.

One principal was optimistic that the budgets won't be as bad as feared but said schools still could be forced to cut things like music and art programs, or to increase class sizes.

"I am anticipating it will not be as bad as it could be, but we will have to make some hard choices this year," the principal said.